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[thebluemeany]

There was a BBC Radio programme about ten years ago that looked into the real life historical factors for some common stereotypes. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name or find it again online. So, apologies, this is my half remembered summary.

It was specifically for Britain (although I can see how some of the factors here would apply to most of Europe and Islamic world). The time period were talking about a period that’s from the high to late Middle Ages.

Higher rates of literacy in Jewish population compared to general population.

The vast, vast majority of people in Britain at that time were Roman Catholic and farm labourers. They got their religion from priests conducting services in Latin. Bibles, likewise, were in Latin or sometimes Greek. The Church sort of ‘performed’ the word of God at them. There was no religious need to read the Bible or understand the liturgy. There was no urgent need to be literate.

For the Jewish population, the written word of Torah and rabbinic texts etc. and understanding them yourself exactly as they were transmitted were much more important. There was a greater religious need for individuals to be literate. And, as a byproduct, once you can read and write, you’ve got a huge advantage in the pre-Reformation job market. You can bookkeep and manage your local Lord’s estate rather than labour on it. You can get yourself more education. You have options.

Post-Reformation, the main religion in Britain flips to Protestantism, where reading and understanding the Bible yourself is much more important. This combined with printing press making books far more available makes the literacy rate of male population go from about 10% in 1400 to about 60% by 1750.

Religious distaste for money lending among Christians = Jewish population fills that gap.

Most specifically, the New Testament story of Jesus expelling the merchants and the money lenders from the Temple. The Christian population sees money lending and banking as a profession they shouldn’t do. Judaism on the other hand, doesn’t have any objections – so Jews in Britian fill that gap.

Shift from Land & Property dominating to growing importance of Trade & Credit

At various points throughout British history, there were different laws prohibiting Jews from owning land and property. As a byproduct of these laws, the Jewish population at that time have to put any wealth they have into the areas they are allowed (credit, trade, investment)

In the 11th Century, land and property is where wealth is. However, starting in 12th Century and running all the way up until the Industrial Revolution – Britain slowly starts to move away from being a feudalistic society to being a trade/commerce economy.

Credit, money (in the physical sense) and wealth you can liquidate in order to invest becomes ever more important. The Jewish population, for the historical reasons mentioned above, are more likely to have those sorts of assets. Their wealth isn't locked up in land.

remembering that time I explained on Twitter that Jews are 0.2% of the world’s population and control like 1.2% of its wealth

while Christians are 30-something percent of the world’s population and control 55% of its wealth

so, like, there IS a minority of the world’s population controlling the majority of its wealth

Christians.

and of course a bunch of utter walnuts were like “SEE??? this proves that Jews ARE disproportionately wealthy!!!”

which, like, sure

sure

we have $1.20 to Christians’ $55

but sure, individually we average out to having a bit more pocket change than the world’s average

a couple of things, though:

-those are AVERAGES—it doesn’t mean that every Jew you meet is wealthy, especially because…

-we are such a small population that the existence of *one Jewish billionaire* would skew the average, learn what an average is ffs, if there are 10 of us and 1 is a billionaire and the rest of us have $0 dollars, on average we each have $100,000,000 but in reality 9 of us still have $0 dollars

-y’all killed off a LOT of our poor people less than a century ago which also tends to skew the average

The minority group (in the sense of being less than half the population; they’re still the largest religion) controlling the majority of the world’s wealth is Christians. Sorry about your favorite conspiracy theory.

[thebluemeany]

Made this ten years ago for the 50th... reblogging for the 60th. Happy new Doctor Who day everyone.

[thebluemeany]

I'm with Garak and his paranoia. Half a season later, Section 31 on behalf of the Federation *do* put a neural transponder in Bashir's head to monitor his thoughts and responses. Garak's fear isn't as outlandish tinfoil hat as it seems.

yes babe you are soo scary and soo good at violating human rights

[thebluemeany]

@philosopherking1887 , in answer to your question, I didn’t see it, so I can’t say for sure , I remember reading some of the reviews/ promotional material they put out.

From what I can remember , two screenshots from the event listing above about maybe what they were trying to do - I think it was clear from outset to audience who went it was an art exhibition that was a blend of fiction and real history.

clean water (highly problematic)

[thebluemeany]

I think this is the fictional museum that was in London last year ? If I’m remembering right and it’s the one up in Clerkenwell - it was an art installation, rather than History - the narratives here aren’t based in any historical evidence I don’t think. ( And also I think the interpretation of the loss of ‘water culture’ is also a imaginative fiction, not or weakly suported by evidence - this is speculative art, not evidence based history I think… or at least the artist was blurring the lines of those two things, the viewer wasn’t supposed to be able to tell)

clean water (highly problematic)

[thebluemeany]

On Power, and on Powering Through, and Why They’re Really Not the Same

I don’t pay much attention to personal attacks in reviews. It comes as the flipside of success; an attempt by the critic to puncture what they see as too much success. But I still remember one review, just after the film of Chocolat, when two of my novels happened to be in the Top 5 at the same time, in which a (male) newspaper critic referred to me dismissively as a premenopausal woman writer. I was a little taken aback. Clearly, it was meant to disparage, but I was only 35, ten years away from the perimenopause. What exactly did he mean? It wasn’t a comment about the book (which I doubt he had even read). The obvious misogyny aside, it seemed to express resentment, not of my books, but of me, myself, my right to take up space in his world. That word – premenopausal – was at the same time a comment on my age, my looks, my value, and a strong suggestion that someone like me shouldn’t be this successful, shouldn’t be writing bestsellers, shouldn’t be so – visible.

I don’t recall the name of the man, or the paper for which he was writing. He was far from being the only journalist who felt I didn’t deserve success. I shrugged off the unpleasant comment, but he’d meant it to hurt, and it did. I still wonder why he – and his editor - thought that was appropriate. I also wonder why, 20 years on, women are still dealing with this kind of thing. It’s still not enough for a woman to be successful in her chosen field. Whatever her achievements, you can be pretty sure that at some point, some man in his 50s or 60s – maybe an Oxbridge graduate, author of an unpublished novel or two - will offer his opinion on her desirability, either in the national Press, or most likely nowadays, by means of social media. The subtext is clear: women who don’t conform to societal values of what a woman should be are asking for this kind of treatment; especially those who dare to achieve more than their detractors.

10 years after that nasty review, I finally began the journey into perimenopause. No-one told me it was happening. No-one in the media was talking about it at the time. Even my doctor never thought to mention that my symptoms – the insomnia, headaches, mood swings, anxiety, depression, sleep paralysis, hair loss, brown patches on my skin – might have a single origin. I began to feel I was losing my mind: as if I were starting to disappear. I started to doubt my own senses. I blamed it all on the stress from my job. My mother had powered through menopause – or so she led me to believe – and made no secret of her contempt for modern women who complained, or treated the symptoms as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

And so I did the same. I powered through; and when at last I began to experience the classic symptoms of menopause - irregular bleeding, hot flushes, exhaustion, night sweats so bad that I would awake in sheets that were wringing wet – it did not occur to me to seek help. After over a year of this, I finally went to my doctor, who took a few tests, cheerfully announced I was menopausal, and when I inquired after HRT, advised me to power through – that phrase again - and let Mother Nature take her course. The internet was slightly more helpful. I took up running, lost weight, cut down on alcohol, downed supplements and sleeping pills and vitamin D, and felt a little better. Then, breast cancer came to call, and by the time my treatment was done, the symptoms had more or less disappeared, or at least had been superseded by the symptoms of chemo. I congratulated myself at having powered through cancer as well as surviving menopause.

But two years later, I feel old. I look that way, too. I’ve aged ten years. Some of that’s the cancer, of course. I was quite open about my treatment when I was powering through it – partly in order to pre-empt any questions about my hair loss or any of the all-too visible effects of three courses of chemo. Not that it stopped the comments, though. Even at my lowest ebb, a sector of social media made it clear that my only concern should be to look young and feminine to anonymous men on Twitter.

Right now, I don’t feel either. My hair has gone grey and very thin. My skin, too, seems thinner; both physically and mentally. At a recent publishing event, several acquaintances failed to recognize me; others just looked through me as if I had become invisible. Invisibility would be a relief; I find myself dressing for camouflage. I tend to wear baggy black outfits. I got my OBE last week. Photographs in the Press show me talking to Prince William. I’m wearing a boxy black trouser suit, flat shoes and a red fedora. I think I look nice. Not glamorous, but comfortable; quirky; unpretentious.

On a thread of largely supportive messages, one Twitter user pops up to say: Jesus, who’d accept an honour looking like that middle-aged disaster? @Joannechocolat thought she’d make an impact? She needs a stylist. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of “dowdy”, it features this photo.

It’s not the same man who belittled me over 20 years ago. But the sentiment hasn’t changed. Regardless of your achievements, as a woman, you’ll always be judged on your age and fuckability. I ought to be used to this by now. But somehow, that comment got to me. Going through menopause isn’t just a series of physical symptoms. It’s how other people make you feel; old, unattractive, and strangely ashamed.

I think of the Glass Delusion, a mental disorder common between the 14th and 17th centuries, characterized by the belief that the sufferer was made of glass. King Charles VI of France famously suffered from this delusion, and so did Princess Alexandra Amélie, daughter of Ludwig 1st of Bavaria. The condition affected mostly high-profile individuals; writers, royals, intellectuals. The physician to Philip II of Spain writes of an unnamed royal who believed he was a glass vase, which made him terribly fragile, and able to disappear at will. It seems to have been a reaction to feelings of social anxiety, fear of change and the unknown, a feeling both of vulnerability and invisibility.

I can relate. Since the menopause, I’ve felt increasingly broken. I don’t believe I’m a glass vase, and yet I know what it feels like to want to be wrapped in a protective duvet all day. I’ve started buying cushions. I feel both transparent, and under the lens, as if the light might consume me. On social media, I’ve learnt to block the people who make mean comments. To make myself invisible. To hide myself in plain sight. I power through, but sometimes I think: why do women power through? And who told them that powering through meant suffering in silence?

Fortunately, some things have changed since I went through the menopause. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more people talking about their experiences. Menopause is likely to affect half the population. We should be talking about it. If men experienced half these symptoms, you bet they’d be discussing it. Because power isn’t silence. You’d think that, as writer, I would have worked that out sooner. Words are power. Sharing is strength. Communication breaks down barriers. And sometimes, power means speaking up for those less able to speak for themselves.

I look at myself in the mirror. I see my mother’s mouth; my father’s eyes. I see the woman I used to be; the woman I will one day become. I see the woman my husband loves, a woman he still finds attractive. A woman with a grown-up child who makes her proud every single day. A menopausal woman. A cancer survivor. A woman who writes books that make other people sit up and think. A woman who doesn’t need the approval of some man she’s never met to be happy. She can be happy now. I can. And finally, I understand.  Powering through isn’t about learning to be invisible. It isn’t about acceptance, or shame, or letting Nature take its course, or lying about feeling broken. It’s looking beyond your reflection. It’s seeing yourself, not through the lens of other people’s expectations, but as yourself. The sum of everything you’ve been; of everyone who loves you. Of claiming your right to be more than glass, or your reflection in it. The right to be valued. The right to shine, regardless of age or reproductive status. Men seldom question their own right to these things. But women have to fight for them. That’s why it’s so exhausting.

This morning, instead of putting on my usual baggy black sweatshirt, I chose a bright yellow pullover. I looked at myself in the mirror. It’s not a great colour on me now, but it feels like dressing in sunshine. My husband came into the bathroom. You look –

My husband rarely gives compliments. I can’t remember the last time he commented on how I was dressed. I wondered what he was going to say. Dowdy, perhaps? Inappropriate? Like a menopausal woman in dire need of a stylist?

At last, he said: When you smile like that, you look like a friendly assassin.

A friendly assassin. I’ll take that.  

Shining like the sun. That’s me.

[thebluemeany]

It’s the same in the UK across arts and entertainment. According to Equity’s 2018 report (biggest trade union for professional actors in the country) 97% of their membership earnt up to £43,000 that year. Only 3% earnt more than that. 68% of actors made less than £5000 in 2018.

ALCS reported that professional authors (defined as people who have it as their primary occupation and make at least 50% of their earnings from writing) on average earnt just £7000 from writing in 2022. 

Theatre is even worse. Half of UK Theatre Directors earn less than £5000 per year. The average salary is £10,759.  (This is from an old report now from 2015. But it’s hard to imagine with lockdowns/pandemic this has got better.) And London is one of biggest theatre hotspots in the world, most places are probably worse than this.  

I’ve worked in UK theatre for seven years now and I’m 100% sure that the lack of good pay and the level of explotation is the biggest reason the arts are not diverse. It’s very hard to fund yourself to stay in the industry long term if you’re not already independently wealthy.

Its crazy how many people think everyone who works in tv and film is rich. The only rich people are the execs and the tippy top percentile of directors and actors. Listen to any actor who is well known for a tv show and they’ll tell you they make more money from cons than what they made on their show.

Support the writer’s strike and when the director’s guild and SAG go on strike support them too.

[thebluemeany]

"Tribbles, my wife loves em, can’t get enough of them, but one thing I noticed is that they just can’t stand Klingons. Those tribbles didn’t take a liking to you at all, did they?"

(sequel to Columbo in Space part 1)

[thebluemeany]

― Donnie Darko (2001) Donnie: I promise that one day, everything’s gonna be better for you.

[thebluemeany]

Being honest, I’ve always found the idea that, because I’m a cis woman rather than non-binary, I ‘accept’ or feel comfortable with societal gender expectations slightly offensive.

I haven’t accepted anything. I just know I’m a woman. And within that word ‘woman’, I can be anything. There are infinite ways to be a woman, infinite ways to express my gender.

‘Woman’ is not a box, or a mix of gender expressions, or a certain set of defined roles. It’s a state of being. It just is. And it’s a state of being that roughly half of the humans who’ve ever lived have experienced. 

A gender non-conforming cis woman will still be a cis woman: this is like feminism 101, I’m not sure how to have conversations about things like gender and women’s rights etc. if there isn’t even agreement on that.

I don't mean any of this in a weird way but if we're interested in breaking down binaries, we can't cling onto the binary of cis versus trans. If gender expectations are as constrictive as we say they are, then this imagined class of people who are okay with gender expectations 100% of the time with no complications is just that. Imagined. It's similar to "neurotypical" as an imagined class of people who are completely comfortable with the social and mental expectations of their jobs and would never understand what it's like to get overwhelmed or feel out of place. The unintended implication is an obsession with labelling and pathologizing that says that it's not gender or workplace norms that need to be interrogated, it's you.

The truth is that you can be outside the binary without formally committing to calling yourself nonbinary. I am a cis gay man who feels most comfortable and affirmed when I'm free to wear earrings and garments I bought in the "women's" section. I tell people my pronouns are he/him because it's the simplest explanation, but they/them and even she/her are comfortable, even validating, in the right circumstances. There are a lot of cis gay men just like me. Am I actually nonbinary and just in denial? No. Being a gay man is deeply meaningful to me. Am I encouraging nonbinary to start calling themselves cis and questioning whether they're actually nonbinary? No, and I feel more comfortable in my own manhood knowing I have the option to leave. I just want us all to define ourselves on our own terms. I want celebrate common ground and shared queerness with trans people and not have to overstate our differences. We treat it as a political and moral obligation to fine tune our labels for the sake of establishing who's allowed to say what, who's allowed to relate to who, and I have to ask: Are we committed to breaking down boundaries or not?

[thebluemeany]

my latest cartoon for the @guardian

[thebluemeany]

Zhaan says the surgical reconstructors did an excellent job on your leg. There's no sign that it was ever broken. Yeah, I was uh - worried about you when you didn't show up for the wedding. Anyway, I'm - I'm just, um, glad you're okay. And I have noticed that you're not talking to me.

Or the scene that completely changed my brain chemistry

[thebluemeany]

I’m 100% agree with the pronoun commentary in this thread, and also the fact that the writing in Shakespeare is incredibly bi.  

But, in response to other commenters, I’m not sure the gender bending in Shakespeare is really a diversity win, is it? I mean, literally the ‘gender bending’ is because women were banned from acting and also to a large degree excluded from public life in the 16th Century.

The fact that the actors were all men pretending to be women and Shakespeare had to write around that isn’t progressive. It’s the consequence of a society that was restricting the freedoms of 50% of the population.

Not sure we want to be like ‘ Woot! The oppression of women allowed men (just the men obviously) to fictionally be allowed to cross gender norms out of artistic necessity, woot!’. 

cw transphobia

obviously this is an extremely bizarre tweet that got ratioed to hell and back, but it’s also hilarious that of all the authors in the entire English literary canon, she somehow landed on Shakespeare as the epitome of cisnormative writing.

like ma’am shakespeare’s characters go on stage and announce their gender to the audience within the first few lines in nearly every play. Including…you know….the very play you reference???

[thebluemeany]

If I remember correctly, there’s a beta canon novel where because she’s a war orphan, she doesn’t know what her family name is. She was too young when her parents died during Cardassian occupation and so has forgotten her full name. She also can’t remember enough details to find out who her parents were or what happen to them. 

Does beta canon give Leeta a family name? I can't believe I know Dukat's full name but not hers

[thebluemeany]

I agree too. Whilst I like the episode, I think the final scene doesn’t work.

My take… and I appreciate it’d be difficult on some levels to have the rest of the season play out to its conclusion if this did happen. But if I wanted to make the final scene of Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges work…

I would substitute Ross’s character for the entire episode with Sisko. ( Sisko’s involvement being a step further to what he was doing during In The Pale Moonlight).

Makes it much more personal for Bashir, in the fact that it’s Sisko. Makes it a lot harder for Bashir to take the self-righteous, angry ‘you’re to blame’ angle if it is Sisko he’s shouting at rather than Ross.

Or, if not a direct replacement of Ross’s character for Sisko, then Id make it so Sloan hinted or outright told Bashir about what Sisko did during In The Pale Moonlight , so the final scene could then be about both characters culpability in the downfall of Romulan politicians.

I think Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges is one of DS9's best episodes, but after some time, I've come to agree with Ira Steven Behr's take:

From Memory Alpha:

"It's an excellent show, but it doesn't have all the levels it should have. We thought we'd do a show about the compromising of Bashir. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that. At the end, Bashir winds up making this angry, pointed speech to Ross, which is a lot less interesting than the situation at the end of "In the Pale Moonlight". There, a man is trying to deal with his own culpability. And this is a show that demanded, I felt, Bashir's culpability. And he gets to walk away clean, with him being the one pointing the finger. It takes the show down a notch, and keeps it from reaching the level we wanted."

I basically agree. In a way, from a dramatic POV, Bashir's confrontation with Ross is necessary. The story needs some exploration of the broader themes of the story, which is what we get when Bashir confronts Ross. It also makes up for the fact that Bashir had nothing to do during Cretak's trial; he was totally passive and that's a disappointing way to end a Bashir-centered storyline.

But by putting Bashir functionally in the TNG/Picard role, they ended up downplaying Bashir's culpability in the plot to bring down Cretak. So here's what could they have done instead.

My alternate take:

Bashir lies awake in bed, rethinking the events of the conference, etc.

He goes to confront Ross, but instead of finding him alone in his office, he finds Ross yukking it up with Sisko and Kasidy and maybe some others. They're oblivious to Ross's role in setting Bashir up. Bashir and Ross make eye contact, but there's no confrontation, and no emotional catharsis for Bashir. This will be a case of "kill your darlings," 'cause you'll lose some excellent dialogue

In the next scene, we see Bashir drinking at Quark's. He's miserable. He's used to thinking of himself as James Bond, but in his first foray into real world spycraft, he got thoroughly used. He admits this to another character. The most logical choice is O'Brien (to set the stage for "Extreme Measures") or Garak (to parallel their scene from earlier in the episode). This character is sympathetic, but does not attempt to ease Bashir's feelings of culpability

Bashir ends the episode deciding it's time he started fighting fire with fire, so to speak.

My personal preference is to have the above character be Garak. Just write one small scene in which it's implied that Garak's gonna mentor Bashir off screen on how to handle Sloan the next time they meet. That would nicely cap Garak's mentorship of Bashir in early seasons and especially Garak's lesson for Bashir in Our Man Bashir

I know some people wanted a confrontation between Sloan and Garak, but Sloan was alway set up as Bashir's nemesis, and I think for Bashir's arc, ultimately, he had to battle Sloan alone

We still get the final confrontation between Sloan and Bashir but Bashir's already planning his next move

Finally, I just want to acknowledge it's easy to critique someone else's work and offer "fix its," but I actually do love this episode, and find it powerful just the way it is. All that credit goes to the writers who did the hard work of constructing the episode for the rest of us to enjoy.

[thebluemeany]

Also, I think this is alternative Bashir. Not 100% sure because the actor hasn’t done much since and then went on to be a director/ teacher at RADA... but it’s the name on IMDb and, lets face it, this photo does sort of scream ‘ FRONTIER MEDICINE with no clue what I’m doing and oh crap, I’m in love with a lizard’.

ever since i found out that peter capaldi auditioned to be sisko ive been desperate to see his version of the "in the pale moonlight" speech. avery brooks did it best but still i know capaldi would have acted his heart out on that. he plays guilt and pent up anger so well he would have been perfect. somebody that still has a twitter tell him we need this

[thebluemeany]

^^^ People have probably seen this before, but there’s an audition call sheet for the UK casting they did: Peter Capaldi, Anthony Head, Keith Allen, Ralph Brown (of Withnail & I fame), Peter Firth, Pip Torrens (Tommy  Lascelles in the Crown) are all there for Sisko...

ever since i found out that peter capaldi auditioned to be sisko ive been desperate to see his version of the "in the pale moonlight" speech. avery brooks did it best but still i know capaldi would have acted his heart out on that. he plays guilt and pent up anger so well he would have been perfect. somebody that still has a twitter tell him we need this